The nomination acceptance / unveiling of Sarah Palin drew an Alaska-sized 37.2 million viewers last night on the broadcast plus cable news networks, besting the tallies of Hillary Clinton (26 million) and Joe Biden (24 million) at the DNC, doubling night 3 of the 2004 Republican convention (18.7 million), and falling just short of Barack Obama (38.4 million). [Update: And there’s an asterisk on that, in a way, because BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo carried Obama’s speech as well.]

Ms. Palin’s running mate, a senator from Arizona, will have his work cut out for him tonight.